She traced the channels, looking for the water’s outflow. She called for the others and showed them what she’d found: the passage emptied into the tunnel beneath, and from there the water meandered down into the lower caverns, passing, inevitably, through the wide expanse where the confessors gathered.

‘A tweak of them gates, boys, and we turn this trickle into a rush. Flood them out, drive them back out at the viaduct. Drown the slow ones if we’re lucky, send a good number out into the gorge.’

Chel paused. ‘Drown them? I thought we could, you know … Just push them back …’

Lemon gave him an even look. ‘Aye, wee bear, drown them. There’s a cubic fuck-ton of water in this here wee lake, and the rate it exits is going to smash out the tunnels below like a fucken hammer. This will not be a bloodless act.’

Foss put one hand on Chel’s good shoulder. It felt very, very heavy. ‘This is grim arithmetic, my friend: we take the lives beneath of those who would take countless more above. We must make our choice, then make our peace.’

‘I … I can’t do it. It was hard enough trying to destroy their engines without killing anyone.’

‘You need not, friend. But someone must.’

‘Right. Right.’ Chel offered a weak grin, then cocked an ear. ‘Hells, it sounds like they’re on the move.’ Chanting echoed from the passages below.

Lemon nodded, suddenly urgent. ‘Then let’s get out of this tunnel and get those pricks wet.’

‘I thought that wasn’t your kind of thing, Lem.’

‘Oh, shut up, Fossy.’

They made back to the grate as the sound of the chanting grew, undercut by the clink and jingle of the confessors’ armour. ‘Twelve hells, it must be all of them,’ Foss muttered. Lemon went up through the grate first, boosted by Foss below. Chel tried to climb by himself but was glad of the assistance, his shoulder growling at the exertion.

‘Hoy, wee artificer, how’d you go about … Ah, pig-piss, she’s legged it.’

Chel hauled himself up beside her. ‘What?’

‘She’s gone. Probably off scooping worms into her drawers. Fossy, you’d best come up here.’

Foss hadn’t moved. Dark blood was caked across his face and body. ‘Someone needs to open the gates by hand.’

‘Aye, right, there’s going to be a rope or pulley or some kind of mechanism—’

Foss had one ear cocked, but even Chel could hear the growing thump of marching feet from below, the chanting loud enough to discern its refrain. ‘Don’t feel we’ve got the time for hunting around, my friend. These gates look old and … ill-used.’ He began to stomp off down the tunnel toward the gates, water splashing around his boots.

‘Fossy! Fossy!’ She started to go after him, but he ordered her back.